Chiefs and local authorities have decided at a conference in Mundri West County that pastoralists taking refuge in Western Equatoria must leave the state by mid-July.

Owing to fighting in greater Upper Nile, Bahr el Ghazal and Central Equatoria, some herders from these areas earlier this year took their cattle to Western Equatoria, including Maridi, Mvolo, Mundri East and West counties.

A meeting on Tuesday in Mundri West County brought together representatives of government organized forces, UNMISS, chiefs from four counties of Western Equatoria, and the migrant cattle keepers.

In the meeting the Equatorian chiefs blamed the cattle keepers for taking over lands and causing insecurity by not allowing locals to go for hunting, collecting honey and lulu oil. They also accused the herders of grazing their cattle on farms of the locals.

Manase, a chief from Bangulu Boma of Kotobi Payam, said the cattle keepers had not been friendly and were heavily armed and aggressive.

“If you come to your friend, I hope you are supposed not to be armed. Now I should question this: Why should they be armed if they are really coming to stay with their brothers? And when they come they stay aggressively because they are well armed?”

He further suggested that individuals within the government had armed the cattle camps.

“There is somebody behind it. I don’t blame government but there are individuals who are doing this thing. Night and day you could hear the shot of guns. How did they happen to get bullets?

“My people they get their resources from the forest – honey and some other things. But they could not be able to go there, because these people are terrorizing,” said the chief.

Resolutions to be passed to WES governor

Lexson Maburuku, the Commissioner of Mundri West County, says that the Mundri conference was organized after the governor decided to mandate chiefs of the four counties rather than local authorities to meet with cattle keepers.

The chiefs were mandated to decide about the cattle camps on their land. Resolutions from the conference will be sent to him the governor of the state, according to Lexson, who served as chairman of the Mundri conference.

The chiefs came up with four resolutions, one of which is that the cattle keepers have to go back to where they came from by the deadline of 15 July 2014. Another resolution was that UNMISS and the government have to provide security so that there are not problems between the local community and the herders when they are leaving.

It was also resolved that the chiefs of both sides attending the dialogue should spread the message of the conference to their constituents.

Finally, organized forces will be detailed to go to the cattle camps to verify whether the pastoralists are having guns or not – an accusation they deny.

Lexson urged the communities of the four counties Maridi, Mvolo, Mundri East and West to remain calm. He said that the cattle keepers agreed that they will go back.

‘A person in trouble will go to his brother’s home’

A chief of cattle keepers from Bor, Daniel Marak, protested the charge that they came aggressively or having arms.

“These are my words: I was a man who ran because of the devastation in the land. So I ran. Now, if a person has a home and his home is destroyed, and the rain comes, he will go to his brother’s home.”

“Now it rained on me, so I ran to my brother’s house. Now if my house becomes better again, I will go back home. Everyone has his home, everyone has his land. Why would I not go back to my place? I ran to save my life.”

Reporting by Maridi FM

Related coverage:

Mvolo community worries about arrival of herders from Lakes (29 Jan.)